[Passive smoking and lung cancer: a new report in perspective]

Recently, a working group of six European scientists published a report on exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and the risk of lung cancer. The report concludes that environmental tobacco smoke is not a primary lung carcinogen. Critical evaluation of the report, however, shows that this conclusion is not justified. Results of recent epidemiologic studies support the earlier conclusion of the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that environmental tobacco smoke does cause lung cancer. Furthermore, the working group fails to present compelling evidence that the results of the epidemiological studies in this field can be explained by bias or confounding, or that the association between environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer is biologically implausible. Therefore, we see no reason to modify the conclusion of the EPA that passive smoking causes lung cancer.